Hacker News

points by regentbowerbird 3 days ago | 0 comments

In Geneva, activists painted bike lanes in three streets in 2023, causing about 2000 swiss francs in damages (or improvements, depending on your view).

The Swiss police under prosecutor Walther Cimino proceeded to investigate as if they were a crime syndicate, gathering forensics but also identifying 96 sympathizers and putting them under heavy surveillance, which included requesting total records from their banks, employers, phone companies, email providers (Google through the US DoJ), and even CCTV and purchases from their local supermarket.

I'm afraid of the possibility that what used to be "grassroots civil disobedience" will now be labeled "eco-terrorism" and prosecuted accordingly.

[–] tough 3 days ago

Someone's eco-terrorist is someone else's eco-freedom fighter

[–] lifty 3 days ago

You can remove eco.

[–] tough 3 days ago

well yes, that's the original quote.

[–] qs1ykyusPlate 3 days ago

so much wasted money that could have been used to fix the road instead. But proving whatever point they had was better in their minds

[–] cucumber3732842 3 days ago

There was a case in the US some months, maybe a year or two ago where some stairs in a park were garbage for too long due to red tape BS. Some guy just said fuck it and build new ones. PT construction, standard deck type construction. Same stuff you see in all sorts of nature preserve land, state forests, etc, and that the useful idiots who I will mention in a minute love to circle jerk about being "low impact" in environmental contexts.

And how did HN respond? Well of course everyone the comment section were screeching about how the sky was gonna fall because he didn't pay his way through an environmental impact assessment, he should get the electric chair as a warning to other vigilantes, he's just a dumb idiot and can't possibly fathom all the considerations that the government would, etc, etc,. I'm exaggerating here, but a hell of a a lot less than I wish I were. Basically a bunch of ideologically driven jerks who were pissed that he made the .gov look bad.

It's not right but it's at least understandable that the municipality themselves were pissed that he did it because it made them look bad (which is the reason the story went viral in the first place) but it's a whole 'nother degree of bad moral character to be not just pissed off in this unjustifiable way, but to be pissed off in this unjustifiable way on someone else's behalf.